ITA airlines to Sicily--help

Logic indicates the airline would not sell a ticket with a connection time that is likely to fail. The airline would bear the expense of getting you on another plane, and under EU rules might owe you substantial other compensation.

The 70 -90 minute connections I see in Rome are tight, but presumably enough time or they wouldn't be selling that ticket.

On the ITA site for flights NYC-Palermo; Catania-NYC, I see only a stop in Rome.

Have you cobbled together a sequence of flights? Your mention of "connecting in Paris" has me wondering that you do not have a single ticket journey. ???

ITA Airways flight AZ1778 departs (currently) from PMO at 6:10 and arrives at FCO at 7:20.
I'm sure that flight would be good for any FCO departures to NYC airports.

Similarly, ITA Airways flight AZ1722 departing from CTA at 6:05 takes you to FCO at 7:30, certainly on time for all FCO departures to NYC airports.

ITA flight AZ 608 from FCO to JFK departs at 10:15.
There is even a flight with Delta (DL231) to JFK departing at noon (Delta is a partner with ITA)

ITA flight AZ 610 from FCO to JFK departs at 14:50, therefore for this flight you could even take the later flight out of PMO or CTA which gets you to FCO before noon.

Two hours are more than sufficient to make the change, especially if you fly with one ITA ticket.

If you plan to fly to EWR, I don't think ITA flies there anymore, or at least not in winter. Only United does.

Has ITA really gotten that bad? I will say I had to pay for seat selection which I think has become the norm on cheaper flights.

I flew round-trip LAX-Rome a while ago and it was fine - the return via Boston in premium economy was excellent. You will always find negative reviews for every airline - people tend not to review uneventful flights.

From what I've seen of the ITA flights back from Sicily, it's a choice of the very early morning flight to connect to the transatlantic flight the same day, or else a later flight to Rome with a layover to the next morning. So your choice.

As for paying for seat reservations - you will pay on British Airways and Lufthansa - hardly budget airlines.

I despise ITA.
Paid $100/person/segment to fly first class FCO-CTA-FCO.
Stale crackers for food.
Only water. No alcohol, no soda.

“I despise ITA.
Paid $100/person/segment to fly first class FCO-CTA”
So, you flew ITA, on a local route expecting first class service and you paid an extra $100 for it yet those flights don’t have ANY flight service at all, and that goes for all of the airlines flying between Rome and Catania. You should’ve educated yourself on your flight. ITA is fine. Never had a problem with them. Much better than Lufthansa, that’s for sure.

OK I booked via ITA because the long layovers were through other airlines.

This is probably a lame question but when we leave from Catania, are we going through customs at that point or once we get to Rome? I cannot remember when I flew from Calabria before the pandemic but I thought I went through Customs in Rome.

Both Catania and Rome are in Italy therefore you won’t go through customs at all. However before reaching the gate to your flight to JFK, in Rome, police officers will check your passports at passport control. You will go through immigration and customs at JFK.

We are flying from Montreal to Rome, doing a 2 night stopover before heading to Sicily (ITA flight)….doing the same on the return flight….gives us a chance to see more of Rome in conjunction with our Sicily Tour. We hope that there aren’t any surprises (fingers crossed)

The only thing I’ve found iffy about ITa is them not enforcing bags to be put under the seat in front of you, or in the overhead in during takeoff and landing.
Flying Palermo to Munich in 2023 the woman on the aisle in my row put her enormous handbag on the empty seat between us.
I sort of gestured to it, and she ignored me.
The FA saw it and ignored it.
Same Florence to Munich last Fall.
Different woman, but an even bigger bag.